


nothing gold can stay

by seventhstar



Series: a covenant with a bright blazing star [4]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alpha Katsuki Yuuri, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Regency, Anxious Katsuki Yuuri, Drama, Long-Haired Victor Nikiforov, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Misunderstandings, Omega Victor Nikiforov, Regency Romance, Slow Burn, Theft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 22:29:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12945381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhstar/pseuds/seventhstar
Summary: Perhaps he should truly follow the advice he has so oft been given, and trust himself. He believes Viktor is good. Why should Yuuri hold the words of others against him?[part of an ongoing series of fics, telling the story of poor and scandalous trademan's son viktor nikiforov's marriage of convenience to the reclusive lord katsuki]





	nothing gold can stay

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, folks, here is your MEGA UPDATE: not one, not two, but four more fics in these series are being posted today! so if you're not subscribed, here's your alert: keep reading! (there's more porn if that helps)
> 
> Reminder that the fics in this series are not being written in chronological order, so if you're reading them as I have them listed in the series, you might find yourself rereading. Check the date posted to see which ones are new!

There is a tea tray sitting on Yuuri’s desk again.

He prods at the pile of biscuits and cakes beside the steaming cup. Yuuri should not eat so many of them, especially when they are hot from the oven and at their most delicious, but it seems a shame to waste them. He bites into one as he begins laying out the morning’s work. He’s never eaten anything like it—it’s just sweet enough, with a bitter note that offsets the sugar perfectly.

Beside the food and drink is a single green carnation. Where Viktor finds flowers at this time of year, Yuuri has no idea. The Yu-topia hothouse was a casualty of a storm last year.

He lays the flower on the nearest bookshelf, along with all the others. None of them have yet died.

Yuuri pays the last of the bills, signing the letter to his man in town with a flourish.

The next piece of correspondence is one he’s been waiting for—Viktor’s dog has been retrieved and will be brought to the estate with the delivery of new furniture. Yuuri beams, despite himself. Vicchan has been following Viktor about (Yuuri keeps looking beneath his desk for him and finding only his feet); sometimes Yuuri catches Viktor’s wistful expression.

Confidence. Yuuri has always been told he lacked it. He is a Katsuki, he is a peer, he received the best education and yet—he has never quite believed it. All those expectations have weighed heavily on him. He needs to stand on his own—he wants to stand on his own—and yet since his parents passed last year Yuuri has felt as if he’s been leaning on a support that has been wrenched away. He’s been falling. Marrying Viktor felt like one in a long line of horrible mistakes.

Everyone has said so. Viktor’s own aunt. The Duke. Minako. Viktor is calculating, and mercenary, and vulgar, and shameless.

Except that Viktor is not. He is vivacious, and eager, and smiles too much, and Yuuri finds it very difficult not to like him now that he is not playing a litany of Viktor’s faults in his head every moment they are together. He asks Yuuri endless questions. He attempts menu planning and supervising Yuuri’s planned redecoration of the house with varying amounts of success. And he has yet to ask Yuuri for money—not under the guise of updating the house, not in the forms of the gifts a newlywed would have a right to expect, not even for a new wardrobe.

Yuuri has been in mourning since the past summer, when the black-edged letter was delivered to him at school.

Viktor is so alive.

“Yuuri?”

“Mari.” He blinks at his sister, standing in the doorway in a brown dress. Her unfashionably short hair has been dyed recently; he can see the stains on the tops of her ears.

“I’ve been recalled to town.”

“Already?”

“There’s talk of war on in France. I have to return at once.”

“What?”

“Will you be all right here alone?”

“Of course!” Yuuri swallows his shame. While he was finishing his education, mired in grief, Mari had held together the estate as best she could, despite not being the legal heir and despite her duties to the crown.

He wishes she could stay, but he’s held her back long enough.

“Minako will stay longer.”

“There is no need. I can attend to matters here.”

She ruffles his hair like she did when he was a boy and she was teaching him to plant a facer. “Well, remember to write to me more than once a year.”

“I will. Thank you for—”

“For what? We’re family. Don’t be stupid.”

“When have I ever been stupid,” Yuuri grumbles.

“You once came home at dawn with half a pineapple in your trousers. Phichit was carrying you.”

“The pineapple was his!”

Mari snorts. “Of course it was. Goodbye.”

“Godspeed.”

She leaves, and Yuuri quickly exhausts his patience for his matters of business. Surely it can wait until tomorrow. He wanders down to the stables, and their lone stablehand is preparing Mari’s mount; Yuuri readies his horse, Hana, himself. There’s no stools to be found, and he has to lift the saddle onto the horse with magic, but he manages.

He rides through the park and between the fields, pausing only to accept the greetings of his tenants when they see him pass. The harvest is over, and preparations for winter are being made. He stops to inspect the two cottages in most need of a new roof; their roofs will leak in the rain. Perhaps he should invite them to Yu-topia until the work is done.

It feels strange to accept their thanks, stranger still to be addressed as his father was. When he first returned home for the funeral, it felt like a deception to take his father’s place. He did not deserve thanks then; he had done nothing.

Yuuri still feels that the work left to be done is great, and he still wakes at night in a cold sweat fearful he will never accomplish it, but…

“Good day, milord!”

“Good day!”

Perhaps he should truly follow the advice he has so oft been given, and trust himself. He believes Viktor is good. Why should Yuuri hold the words of others against him?

_I should buy him a present._

The thought comes unbidden and impulsive, but the longer Yuuri lingers on it, the more it pleases him. Why shouldn’t he treat Viktor properly? No matter what anyone says, Yuuri does not think he is so bad. And if Yuuri is to have confidence in his decisions, surely with his own husband is the place to start.

It is with this thought in mind that Yuuri finishes his survey of the fields and rides back to the house at a gallop. He almost loses his hat to a low-hanging branch, and the wind is chilly, but Yuuri is still smiling when he reaches the stables. He jumps down from Hana, and the stablehand rushes to tend to her.

“Lady Mari is gone?”

“Yes, milord.”

There is time before dinner, and Yuuri’s valet lays out his dinner clothes while Yuuri turns over the matter of a present in his mind. His mother wanted exotic spices from the homeland and cuttings for the hothouse; his father wanted books and new gloves. (Toshiya was always losing his gloves. Yuuri sometimes will find a pair hidden in the rooms that are now his and cry.)

Yuuri has never had to buy a gift for someone he was courting, primarily because he has taken pains to avoid ever courting anyone. He runs his hands through his hair as he paces up and down his bedroom. Too expensive and it will give offense; too cheap and it will not be a gift at all. _Not jewelry,_ he thinks, and Viktor has already given him a bouquet’s worth of flowers.

He tugs at his own hair again, and then frowns. Hair. Now there is an idea. He ought to buy Viktor hairpins.

Which will require a trip to Hasetsu, or to town, or Minako’s assistance in ordering them. He should consult her, anyway, since Yuuri knows very little about hair, his and his sister’s always having been cropped short.

Plans made, Yuuri dresses for dinner with more care than usual, and steps out in the hallway to make his way down for dinner. He is halfway to the main stair when he hears a commotion.

It is Viktor, and Minako, and one of the maids, voices all raised.

“…a signet ring belonging to a peer of the realm, you cannot tell me you obtained it honestly.”

“Madam, if you are making an accusation, I must insist you speak plainly.”

“Are you a thief?”

“Of course not!”

“You expect me to believe you received this as a gift?”

Viktor does not answer.

Yuuri’s stomach drops.

“I thought so.”

He steps around the corner. Minako is holding an armful of books and in her other hand a fistful of jewelry. Viktor’s arms are at his side, fingers relaxed, mouth pursed. There is a frightened maid standing beside them, and it is to her that Yuuri directs his questions.

“What is this?”

“Milord, I was just bringing the books back to the library—”

_He has a particular taste for books…_

“Which books?” Yuuri accepts the three tomes under Minako’s arm. They are magical theory texts from Yuuri’s school day. The same texts, in fact, that Yuuri noticed were missing earlier. “Did you—”

Viktor’s ears are red. His fingers twitch. “I borrowed them.”

“For what?”

“Reading.”

“Reading,” Yuuri repeats. He cannot quite believe it. What possible reason would Viktor have for wanting to read Yuuri’s old theory texts? They are academic, dry, and not of any interest to anyone who is not a scholar. And based on Yuuri’s conversations with Viktor, he is not particularly erudite.

“And these?” He looks into Minako’s outstretched hand when she thrusts it at him. There is a small collection of jewelry: a signet ring from a house Yuuri vaguely recognizes, a pearl bracelet, a pair of gold earrings, and a pendant that makes Yuuri’s heart sink low.

He knows this pendant. After Yuuko lost it at a houseparty at the Duke’s home, she was furious; it was an engagement gift from her husband Takeshi. Yuuri’s seen her wear it a dozen times; he could not mistake it.

“Where did you get this?”

“I…found it.”

“That is a lie,” Yuuri says. He chokes on the word. “It was stolen from my friend. How did you get it?”

“Are you accusing me of—”

“Yes!”

“How dare you,” Viktor says. His shoulders go back, his chin lifts, and to Yuuri’s amazement, he turns and starts to walk away.

“Don’t—” Yuuri seizes him by the wrist. Viktor turns around. “Did you steal this?”

“No.”

“Then how did you obtain it?” 

“I…”

Yuuri stares at him. When it is apparent that no answer is forthcoming, he swallows heavily. Viktor is a thief. Viktor is a liar. And Yuuri actually believed…how can he have been so stupid? Confidence, indeed. He has been completely taken in, just as everyone warned him he would be. How pathetic.

He snatches the books and the jewelry.

“I will take these,” Yuuri snaps. “And I will thank you to stay out of the library while you are here!”

“Fine,” Viktor replies. Yuuri is amazed he is shameless enough to be indignant. “If you will excuse me.” And he turns on his heel and goes. He has braided green carnations into his hair.

He does not appear for dinner, nor does he appear at breakfast the next morning. By the time he dares approach Yuuri in the afternoon, Yuuri has had all day to perfect his escape routes, and he is in another wing of the house before Viktor can manage two words.

 _Fine,_ Yuuri decides as he eats dinner for the second night alone. His original plan was obviously superior. He’ll just avoid Viktor until the year is out. It is a large enough house, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> comments are love, comments are life


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